Here’s an event taking place in Charlottesville later this week that serves as a perfect bookend to this past weekend’s “Aliens”-themed Virginia Film Festival.  It also should be exciting news for fans of the Oklahoma-based band of “fearless freaks”, The Flaming Lips.  On Friday (11/07), WNRN 91.9FM will be presenting a special FREE screening of the film “Christmas on Mars”, the psychedelic science-fiction movie written and directed by the Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne.  The screening will be held upstairs at Boylan Heights (on the UVA Corner) at 8pm.  All ages with a limited menu available for movie-goers.

Here’s how Coyne describes the film on the band’s website:

“Maybe Eraserhead or Dead Man crossed with some kind of fantasy and space aspects, like The Wizard of Oz and maybe A Space Odyssey, except done without real actors or money, and set at Christmas-time. The story that unfolds is intended to hint at childlike magic within a tragic and realistic situation.”

The film, which debuted at this year’s Sasquatch! Music Festival, stars the Flaming Lips’ multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd as the movie’s lead character Major Syrtis and features a cast which includes all of the members of the Flaming Lips as well as appearances by Adam Goldberg, singer-songwriter Steve Burns, and SNL’s Fred Armisen.  “Christmas on Mars” hits stores on DVD on Tuesday, November 11.  The accompanying 12-song film soundtrack will also be released the same day.  [Watch the trailer for “Christmas on Mars” here]

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